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I'm tired of this pagefile thingy, it takes up a lot of space and puts a weight to the life span of my HDD. I'm always using readyboost technology to supplement my 2Gb DDR2 RAM. it allowed me to use 4GB at least (as a rule you can use twice your available RAM) so is there anyway that Windows will stop using pagefile as virtual RAM and rely solely on Readyboost? would there be any degradation in performance? any step-by-step you can offer? thanks! |
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Readyboost is not a pagefile. It merely expands the hard disk cache allowing for faster search/retrieval times. If you disable the pagefile with only 2 GB RAM in Windows 7 you will take a severe performance hit. But if you really want to try it, you can find the settings in the System Properties -> Advanced tab -> Performance "Settings" button. You can disable the pagefile from there (pagefile=virtual memory). you sure about this @alanStryder? owkay that helps a lot. trying right now... I changed my mind, if readyboost cannot act as a pagefile, then MAN!! ITS SMELLS USELESS! except I don't get freeze because of it. thanks pal, it says the recommended is 3Gb and I'm using 2Gb, should I rather adjust to 3Gb as recommended by windows 7? would it make my PC faster? thanks!! now that i've re-read your answer, you mean that with Ready Boost: instead of asking data from the hard drive, it will search for the data in the usb flash memory (and this process allows data access as fast as an SSD? i suppose) Extending the life of HDD Avoiding HDD overheat Faster access [to non critical files] so its more of an HDD cache than a pagefile huh? kinda disappoints me since I was hoping it will lessen my RAM consumption (it's using 80% of the 2Gb right now ) Yeah, it will have no difference on how much RAM your system is using. Honestly if system memory is a concern, the only way to truly alleviate it will be to get more RAM. That will always be your best option. Readyboost is still an okay thing to use, but the end result is that commonly used programs will load faster (as fast as an SSD? My instinct says no, but I honestly don't know the answer to that). That's really about it. It is certainly not a substitute for RAM, virtual or otherwise. Think about it this way: You know that your PC is reading/writing to RAM (and the pagefile) CONSTANTLY. How long do you think that a USB stick could put up with that kind of usage? If you had a good one, a month maybe? They were not designed to be used like that and after too long, there would be data corruptions coming from it--then you have a "bad stick of RAM" so to speak. And an actual bad stick of RAM causes all kinds of trouble. This would be the same thing. |
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Hard disks were designed to last a long time with serious usage. USB thumb drives are designed to be throwaway floppy replacements. I suppose it would be possible to assign the pagefile to a thumb drive, but I don't think it would be a good idea. USB isn't anywhere near as fast or efficient as SATA or IDE. The concept of extending the hard disk life in this instance is a fallacy. Newer hard disks tend to last a very long time, you may be replacing the computer before the hard disk dies. |
